A new additive manufacturing technology for biobased polyurethane composites

聚氨酯(PU)是我们日常生活中最常用的材料之一。由于PU易于大量制造，具有可定制的机械性能，因此通常被广泛应用于包装、绝缘和密封等领域。尽管PU具有优异的力学性能和性能，但近年来PU材料的环境问题日益受到关注，将PU材料的环境影响降至最低的最实用的研究方法之一是在制造过程中整合可持续资源和生物资源。当产品达到其生命周期时，它将部分可生物降解，从而将对环境的影响降至最低。本研究的目标是开发一种新的添加剂制造技术(3D打印)来制备生物基聚氨酯复合材料。在此背景下，短期目标将是修改和开发可与现有3D打印技术集成的PU配方，设计和制造定制的3D打印机以展示PU的打印能力，最后表征打印材料的机械性能，并验证材料性能是否能够满足测试标准。随着团队开发创新技术，研究结果将对制造业非常有利，特别是针对生物基和低碳足迹材料。生物基PU复合材料的开发将通过应用最先进的生物基材料添加剂制造技术，确保加拿大在全球绿色制造和技术方面的领先地位。

Polyurethane (PU) is one of the most commonly employed materials in our daily live. As it can be easily fabricated in a large quantity with tailorable mechanical properties, PU is commonly utilized in a wide range of applications including packaging, insulation and sealings. Despite PU's excellent mechanical properties and performance, there is an increasing trend of environmental concerns for PU based material in recent years Currently, one of the most practiced research approaches for minimize the environmental impact of PU material is to integrate sustainable and bio resources during the manufacturing process. The resultant product would be partially biodegradable when it reaches its life cycle thus minimizing the environmental impact. The goal of this research is to develop a new additive manufacturing technology (3D printing) for fabricating biobased polyurethane composites. In this context, the short-term objectives will be to modify and develop the PU formulation that can be integrated with the available 3D printing technology, to design and build a customized 3D printer to demonstrate the printing ability of PU, and finally to characterize the mechanical properties of the printed material and verified if the material performance is able to meet the testing standards. As the teams develop an innovative technology, the outcome of the research will be very beneficial to the manufacturing sector especially for targeting biobased and low carbon footprint materials. The development of biobased PU composites will ensure Canada's leading position in global green manufacturing and technologies through applications of state-of-the-art additive manufacturing techniques for biobased materials.